


Four Times Katie Helped Her Boss

by Sholio



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, POV Outsider, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21928093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: ... and one time he returned the favor.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 66





	Four Times Katie Helped Her Boss

**Author's Note:**

> I had a request on Tumblr for Ward helping Katie (his season two PA), and I decided this would be a good opportunity to write a story I've had percolating in the back of my head since S2, giving Katie's POV on Ward and on the various S2 developments that she's involved in. 
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: The prompt was specifically for Ward helping her out of a domestic abuse situation, so the last section of this story contains domestic (intimate-partner) violence as a central plot point.

**1\. At the Bar**

Katie held the receiver for a moment and then carefully replaced it. There was a call light flashing, but for the moment she ignored it. Because that had been a deeply _weird_ conversation.

It was early afternoon, and her boss was drunk off his ass.

She took a few slow breaths, gazing at the wall. It was none of her business, and on some level she couldn't believe she was thinking about making it her business. So her boss had decided to spend the day in a bar. She'd picked up from general osmosis that he'd been going through some things lately -- the entire Rand R&D division knew that Mr. Meachum's brother, Mr. Rand of the 51% shares, was in the hospital (she'd been handling the purchase orders on all of that), and she spent enough time around him to know that he was estranged from his sister as well.

He was an adult. He had the right to make terrible decisions every now and then.

She could run the office in his absence. 

But there were other things she'd picked up, as well. Like the fact that Mr. Meachum was some kind of recovering addict. He hadn't told her, as such, and it wasn't something she ever intended to bring up. But Katie had an uncle in AA, and a couple of college friends who'd been in and out of rehab. She could put the pieces together -- the regular after-hours meetings that never seemed to relate to work, the darkly sarcastic jokes, the fact that she'd never seen him drink anything other than water and coffee, even when working late or at lunch.

Katie dropped her head into her hands, ran her fingers through her hair, and got up.

Mr. Meachum wasn't an easy man to work for. But she liked him better than most people she'd worked for. She couldn't even say why, exactly -- he was abrasive, certainly, and she'd been warned by a few people when she'd first started working here about his sudden rages and peculiar, hard-to-meet requests. But so far she hadn't seen much sign of those things, which again went along with her recovering-addict theory. 

Mr. Meachum was a standoffish workaholic with a sharp-edged sense of humor -- but Katie appreciated that; she was a job-driven perfectionist too. He was kind of an asshole. But so was anyone in his position. What it came down to was that she liked working for him, and maybe the jury was still out on him as a human being, but Katie was _worried,_ damn it. Getting involved might cost her job. But she couldn't _not._

He might be an asshole, but she wasn't.

Decision made, she went briskly into his office. She needed to call someone. His brother was the first person who came to mind; she'd never met him, but they seemed to be close. But no, that's right, his brother was in the hospital; that was probably one of the factors that had gone into today's slide off the wagon. His sister was also out, and she knew through office scuttlebutt that his parents were dead.

The thought occurred to her that she might go down there herself, but she just didn't know him well enough; she didn't think it would end well. The last thing she needed was to get into a public fight with her drunk boss.

But there would be a sponsor, right? It went along with the AA thing.

Mr. Meachum was a meticulous record-keeper in some ways and an absolute disaster in others. She tapped his computer keyboard and quickly typed in the password; as his PA, she had access to all the office computers, including his. She'd never taken advantage of that before. Now she flipped quickly through his personal calendar and address book, feeling guilty. Nothing jumped out at her; there was certainly nothing listed under AA or Sponsor.

 _You're going to get fired, and you're going to have it coming,_ she thought, pulling out his desk drawers and riffling through the contents. There was the usual office-desk detritus. He had a physical calendar with little written in it, but there were a number of sticky notes. Most were either entirely cryptic or clearly work-related, but there was one right inside the front cover labeled "B - NA" with a phone number. 

NA could be Narcotics Anonymous. Katie sighed. It was something. She dialed the number on Ward's office phone.

The phone rang three times and then a woman's voice said, "I told you I don't want to talk to you right now."

Oh, good. Katie almost hung up ... almost. Instead she said quickly, "My name is Katie. I'm Ward Meachum's office assistant."

There was a brief pause, and the woman gave a startled laugh. "I'm sorry. I thought you were Ward. Er, why are you calling me?"

"I'm sorry, I wouldn't have called, and I know it's not my business, but ..." She hesitated. Another thing she knew from Uncle Eli: people in addiction programs didn't like to talk about it, or to out other people who were in it. And it wasn't as if she wanted some random -- friend? girlfriend? to know that he was in a program if he hadn't told them.

"Are you still there?" the woman said. "Did you need to talk to me about something?"

"Do you know Mr. Meachum -- Ward -- from a certain shared ... group, I guess you'd say? That meets in the evenings? I'm trying to reach someone else in the group."

Pause. "Yes," the woman said. "Go on."

Katie swallowed. This was the point when she could be about to blow up everything she'd worked for. Last chance to back out. "I'm sorry to bother you with this. I'm worried. He's in a sports bar called the Tap House and he's ..." She stopped, not sure what words to use. Inebriated? Was there a special term for it? A euphemism?

"Oh," the woman said. She gave a soft laugh. "How did you get my number, do you mind if I ask?"

"I found it in his calendar. I know it's none of my business. And he hasn't talked to me about the, um ... the program, that you're in. But I'm worried." 

"As well you should be, I guess," the woman said. "Is he drunk?"

"Yes," Katie admitted. It wasn't like you couldn't figure it out. "He is."

"What did you say the bar was?"

"The Tap House. In Murray Hill. I don't know exactly where it is --"

"I can find it. Thank you for calling me." And she hung up.

Well. It was done. Katie put everything away -- like it mattered now -- and went back to her desk.

Maybe she'd just gotten herself fired, but she couldn't think what else she could have done.

* * *

**2\. On the Runway**

Katie was working late, just finishing up some paperwork, when the phone signaled an incoming call from down in Transportation.

"Hi, Rajid," she said, hooking the phone into the crook of her neck while she sorted last week's financials for distribution to department heads on Monday. "What's up?"

"What's up, beautiful, is I have someone on the other line who claims he's Mr. Rand and wants a flight tonight on the company plane, and I need to get authorization from the top, or I should say from the other half of the top, before I can schedule it."

"Mr. Meachum's out for the evening." Technically he'd been out for the last couple of days, aside from an occasional brief stop into the office to grab some paperwork, which was unusual enough that she couldn't help wondering about it, especially after the AA thing. However, he hadn't looked drunk when she'd seen him, just distracted. "Listen, put him through to me and I'll talk to him."

A moment later, the phone clicked and a young-sounding voice said brightly, "Hi, is this the person who's going to schedule me a flight to Hong Kong?"

"Mr. Rand?" She'd never actually met him, though it was oddly easy to feel as if she knew him just from hearing Mr. Meachum talk about him, with that two-parts-annoyance, one-part-affection attitude that she recognized from her relationship with her own sisters. Honestly, his voice sounded exactly like she would have expected from everything her boss had said. "Hi. I'm Katie, Mr. Meachum's office assistant."

"Oh, _hi!_ You're the person who gets to deal with Ward! I apologize for my brother on behalf of Rands and Meachums everywhere." He took a breath. "So, about that flight to Hong Kong."

"I'm just looking at our booking system now." It looked like Rajid had already filed a flight plan but had waited on sending it, pending approval. She also didn't really have much doubt that Mr. Rand _was_ Mr. Rand, 51% and everything. And yet, her fingers hovered above the keys. 

"Is there something else I have to do?" Mr. Rand asked. "You know, I did this to fly to China, both times, and I basically just asked Megan to get me a flight and she got me a flight --"

"No, no, I'm getting it. I'm sorry you've been getting the runaround. I was just wondering if you've talked to Mr. Meachum about this."

"Why would I need to talk to Ward? I have 51% of the company, right?" His voice was bordering on belligerent. "Do I really need to talk to Ward to get a flight?"

"No. That's not necessary." She hit a few keys. "The company jet will be waiting for you on the runway at our usual hangar."

"Thanks a lot -- Katie, right?" His voice bounced back to cheerful, but ... after dealing with Mr. Meachum for all these months, she was aware of the strained note underneath the bright surface. Exhaustion, unhappiness -- she couldn't quite tell, but he definitely wasn't okay. "Listen, tell Ward you deserve a nice big bonus. Tell him I authorized it."

She couldn't help laughing. "Thanks. Have a good evening."

She switched back to Rajid and gave him a quick rundown of what she'd done, then hung up, but her mind kept circling around that last exchange, and finally she sighed and called Mr. Meachum. He answered on the first ring.

"Katie," he said noncommittally, and she tried to stop herself from picturing where he was. Outside a meeting? Not her business.

"I'm sorry to call you this late," she said, and filled him in briefly on her talk with Mr. Rand. "I wouldn't normally call you about this, but it's unusual, and I wondered ..." No. That wasn't quite right. "I felt you should know."

"What is that idiot _doing?_ No, never mind. I guess I get to take a trip to the airport, because that's _exactly_ what I feel like doing tonight. -- Katie?"

"Yes?" she said.

"Thanks."

***

An hour later, she'd finally made it out of the office and was picking up her car from the company garage when her personal phone rang with Mr. Meachum's number. 

"Katie," he said, sounding a little out of breath. "Listen, I know it's late, but -- where are you?"

"I can be wherever you need me to be."

"Cut the bullshit and just tell me where you are."

"I'm in the parking garage."

"Oh, good," he said. "You haven't left yet. Look, can you run up to my office? There's some paperwork in my office safe. The combination is 10-29-59 -- my dad's birthday. I need my passport and the manilla envelope."

"All right," she said, standing with her car keys dangling from one hand.

"Bring it to the Rand hangar."

"Yes, of course, Mr. Meachum."

***

It was raining lightly when she pulled her car through the private entrance after a brief word with the security guard and drew up under the wing of the plane. She darted to the entry steps with one arm held over her head.

It was a blond, curly-haired stranger who ushered her onto the plane. "Hey! You must be Katie! I'm Danny. It doesn't seem fair that we're on a first-name basis with you but you don't get to call us by our first names, right?"

"Uh, I guess so," she said, glancing around the interior of the plane as she brushed rainwater off the shoulders of her coat. She'd never been on a private plane before; so sue her for being curious. "Is Mr. Meachum here?"

"Ward's doing a quick run back to his place to pick up some stuff. He was going to have you pack him a bag but I talked him out of it, on the principle that I don't want to listen to him complain for the next 16 hours of flight time that someone else picked up the wrong underwear for him." He grinned at her, and she couldn't help smiling back. "But you saved him another trip to the office to get the passport and stuff. You brought it?"

"Yes, of course," she said, and hesitated only briefly before handing over the lightly rain-spotted folder. This definitely _was_ Mr. Rand; she recognized him now from his picture on the office wall, though he looked different in person -- more mature, perhaps. More tired. But the light, youthful voice was the same one she'd heard on the phone earlier this evening. "Are you -- is Mr. Meachum going to Hong Kong with you?"

"Apparently?" Mr. Rand said. It rose on a question. "Oh, I guess that makes things kind of weird at the company, right? Who's in charge if Ward leaves?"

"I'm ... not sure. The board of directors, I think?"

"Oh, good," Mr. Rand said. "Someone's running things, then. Uh. You're not going to lose your job if Ward leaves, right? Because you definitely shouldn't! That wouldn't be right."

"No?" she said. Then more definitively, "No. I don't think so. If the board doesn't decide to ... er ... what's happening here, anyway?" It came out much more plaintive than she intended.

"I'm taking Ward to Asia with me. It's complicated."

"Okay," she said, and sat down abruptly in the nearest seat.

"Hey!" Mr. Rand knelt in front of her, looking up at her with an earnestly worried expression. "Are you okay? Do you need a drink of water or something?"

"No," she said faintly, thinking that while Mr. Meachum was a somewhat atypical CEO, he was still definitely cast in the CEO mold. Mr. Rand, on the other hand, was like no one she'd ever met, at least not in the corporate and aspiring-corporate circles she'd moved in since getting on the career fast track at college. "No, thank you. I'm just ... confused."

"Can I help?" Mr. Rand asked.

Katie let a tiny laugh escape, and then clapped her hand over her mouth. "No," she managed. "No ... I think I just ... don't know what's happening, or what's going to happen to _me_ if my boss just runs off to Hong Kong."

"You won't lose your job," Mr. Rand said, looking up at her with that intense earnestness. "I know Ward won't allow it. He really likes you. Um, with him gone, you might get to run the company. Would you like that?"

She couldn't stop another slightly hysterical giggle. "I don't know," she said, getting herself under control. "Would you, if you were me?"

"Heart of the dragon, _no._ " He grinned at her. "Why do you think I'm here? But do you like that kind of thing?"

"I'm ... not sure?" She tried to imagine it. Making all the decisions Mr. Meachum made on a daily basis. But her mind kept circling around to one fundamental question, because she'd gotten to know her boss pretty well by now, and what they seemed to be obliquely dancing around was a decision she would have thought he'd have to be drunk or high to actually decide on. "Mr. Rand, is my -- is -- is Mr. Meachum all right?"

"You're worried about him?" Mr. Rand asked. For some reason this seemed to delight him.

"I wouldn't have thought he'd do something like this, that's all."

"No," he said, "no, he's okay. You can blame all his bad decisions on me. Anyway, you ought to go home. It's going to take him awhile to get back. What's the rest of your plan for tonight?"

"Er ... I'm going to take a bubble bath and watch as much of an old Jimmy Stewart movie as I can get through before I fall asleep."

"That sounds like a really nice evening," Mr. Rand said, smiling at her. "Oh! Here."

He reached for a piece of paper from a Rand-branded pad between the seats, and folded it quickly with some deft twists of his finger. He placed the wad of paper in her palm, and she held it up to discover that it had somehow, through some kind of paper-folding magic, turned into a little flower.

"For coming out tonight. I used to give them to the person who had your job before you -- that was Megan, she was nice, not that you _aren't_ nice, but anyway, I'm sorry I haven't met you properly before now. I haven't come into the company much."

"Uh," she said, turning the flower in her fingers. "Thanks?"

And so she ended up back out in the rain, walking back to her car with an origami flower tucked into her pocket. She turned and looked back at the plane, and found herself feeling strangely unhappy that she wasn't actually going to get to say goodbye to Mr. Meachum.

... not that he was going away forever, she scolded herself. It was just a business trip .... kind of thing. He'd be back.

But later at home, sprawled in the bath with the phone on speaker mode beside the tub, she placed the rose on top of the phone and told her older sister all about it.

"You work for the weirdest people," Branwen said. "I'm glad I'm not involved in that 1%-er bullshit, kid."

"Oh yeah," Katie said, "because the suburban PTA scene is so much _less_ full of bullshit," and Branwen laughed, and Katie sank back in the bubbles and wondered what work tomorrow was going to be like.

* * *

**3\. In Asia**

The note was on yellowing newsprint and looked as if it had been typed on a manual typewriter, complete with faded, retyped, and off-kilter keystrokes. Katie had never seen its like outside of the old black-and-white movies she enjoyed.

As soon as she realized what she was holding, she almost dropped it. She shifted her grip to hold it by the very edges, and then just as carefully picked up the envelope, though between the post office and the Rand mailroom it couldn't possibly have any physical evidence left. It was a plain brown envelope addressed to _Rand Enterprises, Office of Ward Meachum_ , which was why it had ended up on her desk. She didn't open every piece of junk mail or solicitation for donations, of course -- the interns dealt with that -- but anything personal or otherwise needing special attention came to her. There was a return address in Malaysia, and nothing else.

The note said:

_We have your two majority shareholders. If you ever want to see them alive again, contact us at the following number to arrange payment._

There was nothing else. She shook the envelope upside-down over her desk to make sure.

Then she tried Mr. Meachum's personal number. All she got was his voicemail. She had left occasional messages for him, as well as emails, over the last week or two, and he hadn't responded, but that was typical these days. He had been leaving most of the company decisions to the board, unless they ran into something that really needed the handling of the person who was nominally in charge.

"It's Katie," she said to his voicemail, keeping her voice as calm as possible. "I have an urgent issue. Can you call me back, please?"

She hung up, realizing even as she did so that if they _were_ in Malaysia, or somewhere nearby, it was the middle of the night over there. Just in case, she tried Mr. Rand's cell as well, and got his voicemail too. She hung up without leaving a message.

This note should go straight to the police. But she hesitated. The police and even the FBI had no jurisdiction overseas. Who handled international kidnappings? The State Department? CIA?

And she flat-out _knew_ , without having to ask, that Mr. Meachum would want this kept out of the public eye as much as possible.

On the other hand, the decision was hers to make. He'd made it implicitly clear that he trusted her judgment, and though in general she had tried to make the decisions she believed he would have made in her place, there was always a place for her personal evaluation as well.

The note included nothing to prove that it was real and not just a random attempt to bilk the company. There was no point in involving the police yet, Katie thought, not without any evidence that this was really what it purported to be. But she couldn't do _nothing._

She opened up her phone's address book. After Mr. Meachum left, he had emailed her a few "worst case scenario" contact numbers. One was his sister's. And one was Mr. Rand's girlfriend. Katie wasn't sure what Mr. Rand's girlfriend did for a living, but she had picked up that it was perhaps something a bit odd and slightly outside the usual legal lines, like she might be a private investigator or bail-bondsman or something like that. Whatever she did, it was possible she could help.

"Ms. Wing? This is Katie, Mr. Meachum's assistant. Can we meet somewhere? It's urgent."

***

Not that Katie had a firm mental image of what Colleen Wing looked like, but the woman who showed up an hour later at the coffee shop down the street fit the voice on the phone. She was compact and competent-looking with a graceful fighter's stride, casually dressed in a hoodie and jeans. She ordered a tea at the counter and then came and slid into the chair across from Katie.

Katie handed her the note, which she'd sealed into a plastic bag in the hopes of preserving whatever physical evidence might be left.

Colleen tilted it to the light, read it, read it again. Then she dropped her head and her shoulders shook.

Oh no, Katie thought, and she was fumbling in her purse for a tissue when she realized Colleen was laughing too hard to talk.

After a moment, Colleen took a great, gasping breath and got herself under control. "They've been _kidnapped._ By kidnappers who apparently aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. Did they _mail_ this to you?"

"Yes, it looks like it's been in transit for a couple of weeks."

"Weeks," Colleen said. She took another deep breath and wiped her eyes. "Some poor idiot has been having to deal with them for _weeks."_

"It might not even be real," Katie pointed out. "That's why I haven't gone to the police."

"True. Though to be honest, I almost hope it is. The actual situation is its own punishment." She shook her head and sipped her tea. "I don't suppose you could set me up with a flight to Malaysia?"

"The jet can be ready to go in a couple of hours."

"Great," Colleen said. She stood up, taking her tea. "Thank you for calling me about this. I'll take care of it."

***

Mr. Meachum called her a day and a half later. She was toweling off her hair when her phone vibrated.

The first thing he said was, "Shit. Forgot the time difference. I hope I didn't wake you up."

"No, it's fine." Here, where he couldn't see her, she found herself grinning so hard her face ached. "Are you all right, sir?"

"Oh yeah. Nobody's hurt and ... well ... there's some property damage, but nothing Rand has to pay for. I hear you're the one who sent in the cavalry."

"I'm not sure I realized that's what I was doing, but ... yes. I suppose so."

"Bet you didn't think you were signing up for _that_ when you got this job," he said, and laughed.

The laugh startled her; she'd almost never heard him laugh. "No, I suppose not," she said, and laughed too.

* * *

**4\. As a Parent**

Having Mr. Meachum back in the country after he'd been gone for almost a year took some adjusting to, but not as much as she expected, in part because he still wasn't in the office half the time anyway. Sometimes he'd work a half day, then Mr. Rand would wander in and they'd go off to lunch and never come back. Sometimes he'd stop in for a couple of hours in the afternoon. And some days he didn't come in at all.

It would have worried her, compared to his workaholic habits when she'd first started working for him, except that he looked so much _better._ He was relaxed, he smiled a lot, he joked with the security guards and asked about her family.

She'd come into his office more than once to find him sitting crosslegged on the floor with his shoes off. The first time she caught him doing it, he looked up with a guilty expression, like she'd caught him masturbating or something, and then he laughed. "Yeah, I know. Look, it's all that time around Danny. You develop habits."

"I go to a yoga class three days a week. It's relaxing." In fact ... she toed off her shoes and sat on the floor next to him. He gave her a raised-eyebrow look. "Oh come on," she said. "I could use a few minutes of meditation in my day, too."

So yeah, it was a different place to work these days. Still, she wasn't quite prepared for a harassed-looking Mr. Meachum coming in two hours late one day -- okay, the lateness was almost normal these days, and even the fact that he clearly hadn't shaved and had his tie on crooked was more on the halfway-normal spectrum rather than a sign that something was badly wrong, but what _wasn't_ normal was the baby tucked football-style under his arm.

"Katie," he said, somewhat breathlessly. The baby gurgled at her. "Uh -- this is Alicia."

"Oh!" she said. Katie knew he was a parent. He'd even had her buy baby gifts once or twice. But he hadn't talked about it much; all she knew was that the baby was a girl, and he wasn't on great terms with the baby's mother. 

She jumped up from her desk as Mr. Meachum tried to juggle a coffee, an enormous bag of baby things, and the actual baby while also trying to open his office door. "Can I help you?"

"Yes!" he said gratefully, and rather than giving her the coffee or the bag as she expected, he shoved the baby into her arms.

Katie looked down in surprise, and the baby looked up at her with large eyes that looked as baffled and dubious as Katie herself felt.

"Hey, kid," she said, and after a moment put the baby against her shoulder, the way she would have with her baby nieces and nephews.

Mr. Meachum turned around with a look of slightly wild-eyed gratitude. "Do you know anything about babies?"

"I, um -- my sisters both have kids."

She could see where this was going, and apparently Mr. Meachum read her reaction and (to her surprise) responded to it, because he reached out to take the baby back. "Yeah, okay, I realize taking care of babies isn't in your job description."

"No, it's not," she said, a little surprised at herself for putting her foot down. He'd asked her to do a lot of things that weren't in her job description. But she had a lot of work to get done today, and ... damn it, day cares were a thing that existed, and something he could certainly afford.

So she went back to work, and he did too. Katie delivered a quick morning prospectus briefing while he jiggled a baby on the other side of the desk (making it necessary for her to focus very hard to keep her eyes on his face and not on the baby). And then she worked while steadfastly attempting to ignore the sounds of Mr. Meachum having quiet, increasingly desperate one-sided conversations and occasionally a baby crying inside his office.

Eventually she couldn't take it anymore. She made sure that her work was adequately tied up so she wouldn't end up in too much of a hole later on, pawned off a few duties onto interns, and then got up and tapped on his cracked-open office door.

"Oh, uh, hi, Katie." He was down on the floor, shoes off, surrounded by baby blankets and toys, with the fussing baby in his arms, trying to get a bottle nipple into her mouth. "Just _drink_ it, damn y ... I mean ... Do you need something, Katie?"

"I was thinking ..." She hesitated briefly, because damn it, she didn't want him to get the impression that he could go around pawning off babysitting duties onto her. But she really did genuinely like babies. And the fact that he hadn't asked her meant a lot; she had no doubt that a year ago, he would have dumped the baby on her without a second thought. "I wouldn't mind watching her for an hour or two."

He perked up, suddenly looking less harried, though still equally sleep-deprived. "Would you? Please? Her mom's out of town and this is ... let's say, I thought it'd be a snap after dealing with warehouse heists and ninja zombie death cults, but I may have miscalculated."

 _Ninja zombie what?_ She decided it was better not to ask.

"Sure. It would be a nice break." She sat down on the floor and let him pass Alicia over to her. "Hi, baby. How are you?"

With some coaxing, she got a teary-eyed Alicia to take the bottle. Mr. Meachum, still in sock feet (he didn't seem to notice, and it made her wonder how much he actually wore his shoes in the office these days) went over to his desk and soon was deeply engrossed in emails. Katie began to relax into the peaceful routine of feeding the baby. Alicia's eyes drooped and then closed.

One of the interns opened the door and started to say something. "Shhhhh!" Katie and Mr. Meachum hissed at him in unison. He gave them a boggled, slightly terrified stare and hastily withdrew.

Katie looked guiltily over at her boss. He met her eyes and there was a brief pause and then he started to grin and she cracked up and so did he.

"I'll go find him and see what he wanted." She laid Alicia down carefully on the blanket and tucked it around her. Alicia twitched but didn't wake. "I think she'll be asleep for awhile as long as you're quiet. When she wakes up, I can come back and take her for a bit."

"You sure you don't mind?" he asked, apparently without thinking about it, and she just had to stop and let herself appreciate, for a moment, that there was no way he would have asked a question like that a year ago, or even thought about it.

And that was one of the reasons why she said, "No, I don't mind at all."

***

The next day -- a reassuringly baby-less day -- Katie came into the office with a bunch of articles she'd printed out on baby-friendly offices. She laid them out on Mr. Meachum's desk, and then went back to her own duties.

Shortly after that, a work order came down to have a daycare installed in the building. Katie had a feeling the only reason why it hadn't happened before was because Mr. Meachum hadn't thought of it and Mr. Rand didn't know they didn't have one. It was also the start of a more openly family-friendly policy in the company, including various family events and a few different "bring your child to work" days.

* * *

**5\. ... and one time he returned the favor**

While she was waiting for the elevator, Katie took a few deep breaths, getting herself under control. She kept wanting to brush at her face. She'd walked right through security with no problems. It wasn't noticeable. She'd covered everything up with makeup.

It was just another day at work, she told herself. She was only a _little_ bit late. Mr. Meachum probably wasn't even there yet.

So of course, as it turned out, today of all days, he'd come in on time. His office door was open, and there was a light on, and Katie heard voices -- Mr. Meachum and his brother.

It didn't matter, she told herself. Maybe in the beginning he'd been the sort of boss who might reprimand her for coming in late, but it wasn't that way anymore. He wouldn't even notice or ask, any more than he'd notice any of the other things she didn't want anyone to notice.

She sat down at her desk and resolutely turned her attention to work. She began laying out papers and opening emails, not thinking ahead to this evening, to hard decisions that would need to be made, an endless tangle of complications and emotionally wounding choices; not thinking about anything beyond spreadsheets and investors and the usual daily business of Rand.

It had never really hit her that she didn't really have a support system here. She'd dropped out of touch with her college friends, for the most part, and none of her family lived in town, and her friends at Rand were work friends, the sort of people you had drinks with, but couldn't rely on in a crisis.

Just thinking about it was making her fight off tears again. She blinked hard and got herself together.

Soon she had a pile of paperwork to take to Mr. Meachum. She got up, carefully tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, took a breath, and marched into his office.

"Katie! Hi." So he hadn't even noticed her arrival. Fair enough. He was behind the desk, all but lounging in his chair, with Mr. Rand (in an unzipped hoodie jacket over a muscle shirt with a gym logo) sitting on the edge of the desk, swinging his legs.

It was definitely a whole different workplace these days. 

She put on a smile, ducked past Mr. Rand with an apologetic dip of her head, and laid her pile of paperwork on Mr. Meachum's desk. "Here are your daily reports and schedule. I've forwarded you some emails to take a look at." She was frustratingly scattered today; she had to fight to draw her thoughts together. "Oh, there's a meeting at 3 p.m. with the head of the senatorial committee that handles our VA contracts. That one's especially important, so let me know if you need more than the notes I've included. When you're ready for lunch, please leave me a menu and I'll order in."

She started to turn away, and jumped -- she was that much on edge -- when he leaned forward and touched her arm.

"Katie?" The gentleness in his voice shocked her; it was what stopped her from fending him off and rushing out of the room. "Are you okay?"

Mr. Rand looked around at his brother, confused, then looked at her, and frowned. "What happened to your face?"

"Nothing," Katie said quickly, putting up a hand as if it could hide the bruises she'd tried to cover with makeup in the mirror.

Mr. Meachum stood up. He leaned across the desk, and ... Katie wasn't sure what to do -- she didn't resist as he touched her chin with two fingers and drew her face around to the light.

"Who did that?" he said, his voice quiet, but there was something dark underneath.

Katie pulled away, and looked back and forth between them. They both looked furious, and she ... she didn't know what to say.

"I didn't mean for it to turn out like this," she said, and burst into tears.

***

This was definitely not how she'd expected to spend her morning.

Mr. Rand took her by the shoulders and got her to sit on the floor, and Mr. Meachum brought her a cup of tea from the staff canteen, and then closed the door. She sat there on the floor with her legs tucked under her and both hands wrapped around her cup of tea, and haltingly told them about the fight with her boyfriend this morning. He'd threatened her before, but this time he'd actually hit her. 

"And I _know,_ I know it's wrong and he shouldn't have, and I should never have let it get to this point," she said almost inaudibly, to her tea. "I should have ... called the police or pressed charges, I just -- I was so _shocked,_ and he said he was sorry and I ... I _know_ it's ... I'm such a goddamn cliche. I know that."

"No, you're not." She was shocked by the suppressed anger in Mr. Meachum's voice, making it crack. "Katie. It doesn't matter. He shouldn't have --" He paused, visibly got himself under control. "He's not going to get away with this."

Mr. Rand touched her shoulder, turning her toward him. "It's not your fault; you know that, right? Don't go second-guessing your decisions. Nothing you did made this happen. This is him, not you. Okay?" And as he said it, his eyes flicked over her shoulder toward his brother, a quick and significant look.

"I know, it's just --" She wiped at her eyes and took a shaky breath. "We moved in together. Three weeks ago. That's when ... things got more ... anyway, I don't have my old apartment anymore. All my stuff is at his place. I don't know what to do. My family's all upstate."

"Well, that's easy," Mr. Rand said. He grinned at her. "You can stay with me and Colleen at the dojo."

"She -- what -- _Danny_ \--" Mr. Meachum sounded thoroughly exasperated. "Don't drag her downtown with you, without even asking Colleen; are you _high?_ Look, we've got money. We can arrange an apartment at short notice."

"Yeah, but her boyfriend --"

"We can --"

"Yeah, right," Mr. Rand said, and Katie looked between them in bafflement; it was obvious that an entire conversation had happened, most of it not spoken aloud.

"You have a place for me to go?" she said, because right now, that felt like the important part. That was what she didn't have. _Home_ had always meant, for her, the place she went at the end of the day and closed the door -- the dorm room, the apartment with the nice claw-foot bathtub ... and then all of that consisted of Tyler's apartment, and suddenly she didn't have a place, her place was _gone_ ... and she just wanted -- a place. To go.

"We will," Mr. Meachum said flatly. "Danny, what about that place -- the apartment Hogarth had you in, when you first came back? Think she's still got that?"

"Easy to find out," and he took out his phone.

Katie still couldn't believe they'd both just dropped everything to help her. "Listen, you have things to do, right?" She appealed to Mr. Meachum, since Mr. Rand was now having some kind of semi-friendly argument on the phone. "You can't just spend your day dealing with my problems."

"As opposed to all the days you've spent dealing with mine?" Mr. Meachum said with a slight, wry smile. He raised a hand; it stopped, awkwardly, short of a pat on the shoulder. "Look, just ... give us your address. We'll get your things for you and take them to the place Danny's arranging."

Mr. Rand swiped his hand across the phone to end the call. "The apartment's yours. Let me show you where it is. Uh, I hope you weren't planning on working today."

"But -- your meeting?" Katie protested, as they hustled her out.

"I don't really care, to be honest," her boss said.

***

The apartment was ... um ... _wow._

Katie wandered from room to room, staring up at the ceiling, looking around. "I'm going to stay _here?"_

"Not for long," Mr. Rand said. "Just until you find somewhere you like better. It's kind of impersonal, I know."

It was kind of _mind-blowing,_ but she didn't say so. Any of her previous apartments could have fit in one room of this place, with room to spare.

"Do you want to stay here while we go and, uh -- talk to your boyfriend?" Mr. Rand said. "And get your stuff, and -- I guess you should probably be there for that."

"We can just take everything that's there and bring it here," Mr. Meachum said. Katie turned to look at her boss in flat disbelief. He was lounging in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe, and he sounded really happy about the idea.

"I think maybe I should go along," she said.

***

Tyler wasn't home. She wasn't sure how to feel about that. On some level, it would have been incredibly satisfying to watch them ... well ... do whatever they were planning to do if he had been. Her eye socket still throbbed; she'd never been in a fight, and couldn't get past how deeply it hurt, and how thoroughly it hurt in other ways when she thought of how she'd trusted him, how she'd pinned her hopes on him -- for a future, for a baby like Alicia, for a _home._

It was probably better that he wasn't here.

She filled several boxes with her things, while two New York billionaires hung around looking alertly dangerous and carried her boxes down to Mr. Meachum's car.

"You don't have to do this," she tried. "It's not dangerous. You have things to do."

"Not more important than this," Mr. Rand said cheerfully, and took a box from her arms.

Mr. Meachum didn't say much. He just sort of hung around the edges, with a dark look on his face like he was sort of hoping Tyler would show up soon.

She didn't really know what to say to him. She felt like she was seeing a whole new side of him, a side she'd never seen before. He was still wearing the suit and tie, but that alert way he watched out while Mr. Rand carried the boxes downstairs -- it was _practiced._ She could imagine him standing just like that with a sniper rifle, standing guard.

She wondered -- not for the first time, but in a much more acute way than usual -- what the heck they'd been doing for all those months in Asia.

"Thank you," she said, a little shyly, as Mr. Rand took the last box from her arms.

"Sure, anytime," he said, grinning at her, and then he carried her box downstairs and she turned to her boss, with his wild sentry alertness, looking across the rudely stripped mess of her ex-boyfriend's apartment as if it was a foreign battlefield.

"Are you okay?" She wasn't even sure what made her say it; he just ... sort of looked like he wasn't.

"What?" He seemed to come back from some place deep in his head, and he gave her a slight, tense smile. "We're in your abusive boyfriend's apartment. Shouldn't I be asking you that? Actually ... I _should_ be asking you that."

She couldn't help smiling, even if it was slight and tugged at the bruises around her eye socket and on her cheekbone. "I ..."

She'd meant to say that she was okay. It was ... it should have been okay. She was getting out. But there was also the wreckage of the life she'd planned with Tyler, tangled around her ankles as if to drag her back, and stop her from going and starting a new life elsewhere.

"Stupid question," her boss said, almost to himself. "Stupid goddamn question. I retract it."

"No, I ... I'm all right."

"No you're not," he said, and smiled tightly. "You're not. Right? But you're going to be. Take it from me."

"I --" she began, and just then Mr. Rand came back, and her boss swiveled around and some of the darkness left his eyes.

"Can we take his couch?" Mr. Rand said.

"No," Mr. Meachum said automatically, and then, "Well. Maybe. Do you have plans for it?"

"I was thinking we could donate it to a women's shelter."

"It won't fit in my car."

"I'll rent something," Mr. Rand said, looking cheerful. "Bet the TV would fit too."

"I -- Okay, fine. I'm leaving now, and my car is also leaving. If you want to steal his furniture, go for it. Katie?"

"Uh, yeah, coming." Katie hurried down the stairs after him, glancing back every now and again. She tried to picture Tyler's apartment stripped of its furniture, every last stick of it decorating some shelter somewhere, and she laughed; she couldn't help it. And only this morning, she'd thought she might never laugh again.

Her boss stopped and looked up the stairs at her, smiling slightly. "Feeling a little better?"

"I can't believe he's really going to steal Tyler's furniture. Can he get away with that?"

"He's Danny. He does stuff like that." He hesitated, looked like he was thinking over what to say, and then he said with a strange intensity, "That asshole's never going to hit you again. Understand that?"

"Yes," she said, and she believed him.


End file.
